I changed my Monk Mantra over the weekend just to test something.

I'm using the popular Mantra of Convition, but I switched to the Submission rune just to test it out.

For those non-monk players it says:
Mantra of conviction:
... Mantra that causes all enemies within 20 yards of you to take 12% additional damage...

Rune:
Enemies affected by Mantra of Convition take 12% weapon damage per second as Holy


My question is, the Mantra itself (like most skills) just says 12% damage.
The rune specifically says 12% weapon damage. What is the difference? x% damage use the profile dps?

I'm assuming this means it does very little damage in reality, and that it only uses the primary weapon.
So for 2H weapon this skill will do a LOT more than when duel-wielding.


Does anyone have any more information on this mechanic and the difference between weapon damage % and damage %.



P.s. in combination with Sweeping Wind (which actually also says weapon damage) this rune actually works quite nice. I could see all the small mobs around me simply melt away without even attacking.

It has to do with how the damage is dealt. Taking "an additional 12% damage" is a flat damage modifier to attacks you make. If Fist of Thunder would've dealt 50,000 damage, it now deals 56,000 damage.

"Take 12% weapon damage" is an attack on its own. There are a ton of details worth paying attention to here, however.

The Spin2Win Barbs use tornados flying out of Sprint which deal "60% weapon damage" with no specifier of time, e.g., "60% weapon damage per second." In this case, they use attack speed to determine an "attacks per hit" as far as how often it will deal that "60% weapon damage" which is proportional, but not the same as the displayed aps. A tornado can also crit so damage, attack speed and critical hit damage all contribute to the potential damage of a given tornado.

In the case of the Mantra, it specifies a time frame, "12% weapon damage per second." This is also how Bleed and Poison damage is represented, like the Barb's Rend skill doing "700% weapon damage as Physical over 5 seconds." The damage is dealt in "ticks" and each tick is unaffected by weapon speed or aps. While the mantra may deal 12% weapon damage per second, if it ticks 4 times per second, then it's actually dealing 3% weapon damage 4 times per second.

This is an important difference, because a constant weapon damage over time attack will do far more damage with 2H weapon than a 1H weapon. For any skills that ticks and takes into account attack speed, there's no inherent advantage of 1H over 2H. The constant damage over time skills, they only take the amount of damage you'll do per weapon strike into account. This means the Mantra damage caused by a big damage 0.9 aps 2H axe is going to be far more than a 1.71 aps Heaven Hand even if they both have the same displayed dps.

Incidentally, this is part of the reason Blizzard thought 2H weapons would see use. If you want to build a character that kills solely on Mantra damage, you can prove them right and find the biggest, ugliest, 2H Axe to do the most Mantra damage possible.

Damage over time ticks generally can't Crit or proc Crowd Control effects, but some of them can proc LoH, with a proc coefficient. Demon Hunters are a good example. For Hungering Arrow, there's a little used rune Cinder Arrow, "Light the arrow on fire, dealing 35% additional weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds." In this case, the initial arrow impact will proc Crits, CC and LoH. If the arrow damage doesn't kill the monster, the ensuing Fire damage will proc LoH on its first tick, but no Crit or CC checks. This means a DH will actually get twice as much LoH with Cinder Arrow against Elites, because they'll always get that first tick of Fire Damage.

The DHs also have a skill called Caltrops with the now-disused rune Jagged Spikes, "Enemies in the area also take 270% weapon damage as Physical over 6 seconds." In Patch 1.0.5., this had a low proc coefficient for LoH, but did proc with each tick which made it fantastic for regaining life when stacked. They removed the LoH proc and no one runs it anymore. I believe Trail of Cinders still procs LoH on each tick.

Google tells me that Monks' mantras do not proc Crits, CC or LoH so you'll be doing x% weapon damage per tick and that's it. I believe Life Steal works on all damage be it per attack or per tick, but I'm not positive on that.

You can calculate your weapon damage by backing out your CC/CD and aps if you really care.

thx for the explanation.

Still using the new rune, but not going to change my gear just for the skill. Sticking to my Fury for now.